The Lion and the Philosopher
Mn. FREDERIC PROKOSCIL who is not unknown in this country as a poet, has now produced a peculiar and by no means un-
impressive work of fiction. On the face of it this book describes an imaginary journey undertaken by a young American across the Continent of Asia. All his life, he confesses, he has longed to see Asia : the mere sound of the word has always made his heart beat more quickly. From Beirut he goes to Damascus and Istanbul, through the Black Sea to Trebizond, to Tiflis, Tabriz and Teheran, and on to India, Burma, Siam, and IndO-
China. A great many places and people are described in detail, on the whole with vividness, but occasionally ilr
a manner too suggestive of other writers who have described them at first hand : thus an account of existence in a Turkish
prison has an air of having been based on books, and a description of the court of an Indian maharajah on Mr. Ackerley's HindoO Holiday. Whether these passages have sprung from literary sources or not is less" inportant than the fact that they add nothing to our imaginative knowledge of life in a Turkish prison or Indian Court. The story is episodic but not exactly
picaresque, and may be regarded as an allegory or fantasy, as a hint at an attempt to discover the best way to live in this particular most fruitless and tantalising of possible worlds." It scarcely conforms to any conventional standard of novel-
Writing, and by any such standard is far from faultless, being weak in characterisation, so uncertain in design as to depend largely upon a clumsy use of coincidence, and although sug- gestive in the long run of a background . of teeming be- wildered populations half squalid and half splendid, it is
somewhat over-discursive.
But in spite of all this it has some valuable qualities, two of
which are rare in contemporary fiction—one is exuberance and the other sensuality. The exuberance rather suggests that of Voyage au Bout de la Null, though Mr. Prokosch's pes- ' simism' is very much gentler:' the senguality is his own, and is conveyed by such things as frequent descriptions of the odour and texture of men's bodies, by a delight in physical contacts and especially in scenes of bathing or nudism, and by a fondness for using words that suggest size, texture, or voluptuousness ; words like great, hairy, hairless, odorous, obscene, perverse. If 'somebody throws a glance at 'the narrator, he can " almost feel it running across his check like a piece' of satin," or it is "like the' cold flat side of a knife ", he drinks tainted water, and can ",feel it gliding all the Way down into his belly like a slim warm snake."' " Whatever you do,' (says one of his chance companions) remember this : be faithless, happy-go-lucky. Look ahead 'of you, not behind you. 'Be on the'side of the lion, not the philoso- pher.' " But there is a conflict in him :. he is by native half lion and half philosopher. Part of his strength lies in his sensuality, and part in his ability 'to exercise that " touch of the fanciful." which " brings by • closer to the true nature 'of life than any number of commonplace objects seen by ,the light of the sun,"
and to touch lightly and pointedly on such matters as the elusive and 'puzzling nature of happiness and love--" how finv
. know it when they see it, how few even know what if is they want, how stiffly and timidly' they grope abotit." Both as sensualist and philosopher, this first person singular seems at moments akin to D. H. Lawrence :
" What's ahead for us except a dark age ? . . when reason goes we've got to fall back on instinct. And do you know What instinct is ? It's a wild lion roaming through the jungle with blood on his tongue."
:11r. Prokosch's hero rampages, but reason keeps breaking in, and meanwhile there are so many tame sheep roaming aboUt in the jungle of fiction with twaddle on their tongues that ,a wild but introspective lion is really very welcome, and anyone
likely to enjoy an unusual combination of animal spirit's, imagination, and thoughtfulness; will do well to pay attention to The Asiatics and its author. WILLIAM PLOMER.
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